


let's take our love to the sea (and watch it drown quite beautifully)

by ignitedbones



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, let me apologize in advance for this, there is perrie/zayn and sophia/liam but it's not serious i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:25:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4051408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitedbones/pseuds/ignitedbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Zayn still comes to Liam’s hotel room in the middle of the night, smelling like cigarette smoke and trailing ink-stained fingers down the ridges of Liam’s spine.</p>
<p>Liam almost says it on multiple occasions: “I love you.”  He tastes the words on his tongue whenever Zayn is in the shower or deep asleep beside him.  He kisses Zayn’s forehead on the mornings where he wakes up first (most of them, really) and thinks of the words over and over again, practically shouting them in his head in the hopes that Zayn will somehow hear them in his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's take our love to the sea (and watch it drown quite beautifully)

**Author's Note:**

> let me just say this in advance: i am so, so, SO sorry for this. apparently i was born to abuse the general public with angsty headcannons that later develop into sappy, emotionally unstable fanfiction.
> 
> ALSO: while this story does include perrie/zayn and sophia/liam, it's implied that their relationships are more for publicity than anything else. (which does, by the way, not reflect my personal views on either relationship in real life. this is a work of //pure fiction//)
> 
> this story is dedicated to ruthie because she likes to ruin my life with (admittedly not nearly as sad as this) ziam plot bunnies

_There’s a moment in the beginning – shortly after WMYB drops and the world is (both literally and figuratively) dancing at their fingertips – where Liam wakes up to find Zayn watching him, messy-haired and lips pulled into a lazy smile._

_Liam groans and buries his head in his pillow, hoping to hide the red flush splashed across his cheeks.  “Time is it?” he mumbles, even though he caught a glimpse at the alarm clock over Zayn’s shoulder and knows that it’s a little past four in the morning.  He kind of just wants to hear Zayn speak with that slow, careful slur that he always has when he’s been woken up any time before noon._

_“Early,” is all Zayn says, and the sound sends a chill down Liam’s spine._

_“We finally get to sleep in for once, mate.  Go back to bed.”_

_Liam fully intends on going back to sleep at that point, but a few moments later and his hair is being tugged at.  He raises himself up on his elbows and squints in the darkness, letting his eyes adjust to Zayn’s lanky frame.  “The hell?”_

_Zayn is still smiling, only now he’s all teeth and bright eyes, and Liam doesn’t think he’s ever seen the other boy this alive so dreadfully early in the morning ever before.  “I like your hair,” Zayn whispers, tugging at it again.  “And your chin.”_

_Liam’s breath hitches in his lungs, caught like a bird in a cage, while Zayn drags his pointer finger down the side of Liam’s face and taps his chin.  “And your nose.  And your eyes.  And your eyebrows.”_

_Liam doesn’t really know what to do in this situation, so he kind of just sits there, in a slightly uncomfortable position, while Zayn’s fingers explore his face with long, careful, artist’s fingers._

_“I like all of you, **Leeyum**.” Zayn says quietly, so quietly that Liam is starting to wonder if this whole thing is a work of his over-active imagination._

_“I…I like you, too,” Liam blurts, partly because he doesn’t know what else to say but mostly because he does.  He has admired every inch of Zayn Malik’s body and soul since the moment he set eyes on the other boy._

_Zayn sits up and scoots closer to Liam, pressing their bodies together.  He’s laughing, quiet and drawn-out, while cupping Liam’s face in his hands and bumping their noses together._

_They don’t kiss, even though Liam kind of wants to (really, **really** wants to).  _

_Looking back, Liam knows he’s felt something for Zayn since the moment they met, but he tells himself that this is the moment he finally knew for sure that he wasn’t alone._

xxx

Two years, six months, and two weeks (according to the fans) after Zayn leaves One Direction, he drops his first album and it hits Number One in a matter of hours.

Perrie (no longer his fiancée due to complicated schedules and a genuine lack of love that might as well have been there from the beginning, but still a good friend) isn’t around, so Zayn celebrates with his family, Shahid, and a few friends that he’s made since going solo.  Harry and Niall both text him strings of repeated emojis and Louis sends him a quick voicemail that he gets the crowd on One Direction’s current tour to scream along to.  _Love you, Zayn!  Congrats on the album, mate!_

Liam doesn’t say a single thing and Zayn tries not to think about it, but he does anyway, so he drinks “to celebrate” and goes along stupidly with talk about tours and merchandise and mansions in LA.

He takes a moment away from the crowd to smoke out on the porch, fumbling to light the damned cigarette as a re-written version of the song _I Won’t Mind_ (now featuring Ariana Grande) blasts from the speakers inside.  His album has been playing on repeat all day, quiet at first and now floor-shaking loud, although this song is just as quiet and bittersweet as Zayn had always wanted it to be.

Shahid had fought with him (just as Louis had done) that a song that heartbreaking didn’t belong with the rest of his music, but Zayn wasn’t looking for his music to _match_.  Although he once dreamed of being a writer, anything past a song or a poem was usually asking too much of his talent, so he used his music to tell his stories.

_I Won’t Mind_ was a story about Liam.

“ _And that’s another thing, mate_ ,” Louis had said, almost four years ago when Zayn first handed him the rough scribblings of the original song.  “ _You think Liam won’t get it?  You think the **world** won’t get it?_ ”

“ _Maybe that’s the point_ ,” Zayn snapped.  He remembers making sure that none of the other boys got a chance to read it, although he did use his connections to record a demo.  He’d scrawled ‘ _For Liam’_ across the disc.  Just in case he never got a chance to say those things out loud; this way Liam would know, even if was too late, that Zayn was never really thinking about anyone else.  Ever.

He still doesn’t know how that song ended up in Shahid’s hands, and he’s thinking about it now as the door slides open and out walks his mother, shaking her head at the ever-growing crowd just as he and Ariana’s voice merge to miserably croon, “ _Even though I know you’ll never be mine_.”

She doesn’t say anything as she walks to stand beside him, just grabs the cigarette from his fingers and snubs it out with the ankle of her boot.  He’s so drunk that he laughs, but he really _did_ need that cigarette.

“It’s different,” she eventually says.  “Parties were never like this with the boys.  I approve of your decision, don’t get me wrong, just not the company you’re keeping.”  She smiles teasingly and nudges him in the side, but Zayn’s buzz has taken a turn for the worse and he now feels more nauseas than blissfully satisfied.

“I don’t even know most of those people,” he mumbles. 

“Maybe you should _get_ to know them.  Ask one of them out—“

“You just said you don’t approve of any of them,” he interrupts, closing his eyes to stop the ache behind his eyes from spreading any further. 

“I approve even less of my son looking like he’s getting a constant kick to the heart.  Did he text you today?  A call, even?”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

With a heavy sigh, his mother shifts away from him but rests a hand on Zayn’s shoulder.    “I won’t tell you to stop waiting, because I know it’s not that easy.  Just…keep an open mind.”

The worst part is, he _has_ kept an open mind.  Even before he asked Ariana to collaborate with him, they dated for seven months and flaunted it very, _very_ publically.  He liked her well enough, he guesses.  With him, gender wasn’t the issue.  It wasn’t even personality, if he’s being honest.

She just…wasn’t what Zayn needed.

This time, when he pulls out a cigarette, his hands don’t shake while he lights it and his mother doesn’t take it away.

xxx

_They’re never a couple.  Not even the “off-and-on again” kind._

_Zayn has Perrie and a little while later, Liam has Sophia.  Both relationships start on the terms of friendly flirting and develop with the tempting notion of no more “any ladies in your life?” questions during interviews._

_But Zayn still comes to Liam’s hotel room in the middle of the night, smelling like cigarette smoke and trailing ink-stained fingers down the ridges of Liam’s spine._

_Liam almost says it on multiple occasions: “ **I love you**.”  He tastes the words on his tongue whenever Zayn is in the shower or deep asleep beside him.  He kisses Zayn’s forehead on the mornings where he wakes up first (most of them, really) and thinks of the words over and over again, practically shouting them in his head in the hopes that Zayn will somehow hear them in his dreams._

_Later, Liam always laughs at himself._

_It’s a good thing he doesn’t say it out loud, really, because before he knows it, Louis is sitting Liam down in the tour bus, fiddling nervously with an unlit cigarette and tapping his foot along to the beat of a song that only he knows._

_“Lady troubles?” Liam asks, smiling a bit because Louis’ “lady troubles” are never all that troubling._

_Louis sighs and runs nervous fingers through his hair.  “Listen, mate…jesus, I shouldn’t be the one doing this…”_

_Suddenly concerned, Liam’s smile drops.  “Tommo?”_

_Louis shakes his head.  “Look, okay, so Zayn went ahead and did this… **thing** , right?  He did this **thing** and he didn’t tell you about it yet because he doesn’t know **how** to.  He has this whole one-on-one conversation planned for the two of you but the other lads and I thought we should prepare you before—“_

_“Cut the shit,” Liam snaps, suddenly angry and embarrassed even though he doesn’t really know why._

_“Zayn proposed to Perrie, Liam.  And she said yes.”_

_To this day, Liam remembers how quiet the world got.  The lights on the bus seemed to dim a bit, and when Louis reached out to tug at his sleeve, Liam didn’t feel a thing._

_He runs out of the bus because he’s an idiot.  He runs to the other one – the one occupied only by Zayn since Harry and Niall are out partying – and he doesn’t even bother knocking because all he can think of is Zayn smiling at Perrie and Zayn laughing at Perrie’s jokes and Zayn taking the time to pick out the perfect ring and Zayn and Perrie and Zayn and—_

_“Liam?”_

_Zayn is sitting up in his bunk, looking sleepy and confused, while Liam marches over, grabs him by the collar of his t-shirt, and kisses him so hard on the mouth that Liam can feel the fault lines in his bones start to break open.  There are bruises everywhere, he thinks.  All of them left by Zayn._

_Invisible to the naked eye but painful all the same, and Liam wonders if Perrie is the one pressure point that finally knocks him to his knees._

_“Don’t…you can’t…” Zayn pants, but whatever he has to say gets lost in the slam of his back against the wall.  Liam uses his arms to trap Zayn like an animal._

_There are tears streaming down his face even though he doesn’t remember starting to cry, and his chest is heaving with the force of just **breathing** , for fuck’s sake.  _

**_I love you_ ** _, he thinks._

_Zayn apologizes and pulls Liam into a hug, but it doesn’t feel quite right._

**_I love you._ **

_Liam falls asleep in Zayn’s bunk, but Zayn doesn’t sleep with him.  Instead, Louis and him swap places, and Louis watches Liam sleep through the night with an unlit cigarette still trapped between his fingers._

**_I thought you loved me, too._ **

xxx

It’s funny, in a way, how Zayn’s life works like a cuckoo clock.

Moments of time are exaggerated by bursts of both good and bad energy, plates shifting under the earth and pushing him into situations that he never would have taken on if it weren’t for the same four boys that he hardly ever sees anymore.

Three years after his first album drops and Zayn is touring with the Big Leagues.  He smokes weed with rappers that he grew up admiring and writes with artists whose songs got him through both the best and worst moments of his life.

It’s in the middle of all this, when he’s dating a model and banging actors on the side just because _he can_ , that he gets a call at three in the morning.  It goes directly to voicemail, comes from an unknown number, and he doesn’t play it until a little past noon.

He plays the message out loud while brushing his teeth, figuring it’s probably from some boy that he’s screwed around with and never thought to get the number of.

“ _Zaaaaaayn_.”

Zayn freezes, minty foam dripping down his chin and eyes widening at his own reflection in the mirror.  He’d know that voice anywhere, anytime, even slurred by alcohol.

Liam.

“ _You know…you **know**_ ….”  Liam cuts off, the sound of a phone being bumped around followed by unintelligable mumbling from a female voice.  Zayn drops his toothbrush into the sink and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“ ** _Fuck_** ,” Liam hisses, sounding annoyed.  “ _Never get a moment of peace, ya know?  No more band and still…no bloody peace.  Although I’m in a club and I’m all alone so I mean_ …”

More phone fumbling.  Zayn feels a headache coming on.

“ _There’s somethiiiiing I never told you_ ,” Liam drawls, and Zayn can practically _see_ the smile on the other man’s face.  They might as well be together, right now, drunk in some club like they used to do all the time when they were younger.  Stealing kisses behind booths.  Laughing into each other’s mouths and having competitions to see who could get the most numbers, even though neither of them ever called any.

“ _I heard somebody talk today, about how life can just like… **boom** …stop all of a sudden and, like, it got me thinking_…”

Zayn is smiling without thinking.  His eyes sting with unshed tears and he’s smiling like an idiot and his heart is beating against his ribcage like a beast trying to escape, pounding out Liam’s name in bursts of nostalgic, bittersweet energy.

“ _Zayn I_ —“

And that’s all there is.

Zayn waits.

And he waits a bit more.

But Liam never finishes his sentence.

Frantically, Zayn grabs his phone and tries redialing the number, not even really thinking about the consequences or what this could possibly, _possibly_ mean, but nobody ever answers and Liam, apparently, is still a bit of a stubborn bastard when it comes to setting up a voicemail account.

Still, Zayn plays the message over and over again, pretty damn sure he knows what Liam was about to say but never once letting himself think it out completely, just in case he’s wrong.  He might slide to the floor and he might cry a bit, laughing hysterically at nothing but the drunken sound of an old friend’s voice, but nobody will ever know and he might be okay with that.

xxx

_Zayn tells Liam about his decision to leave the band while leaning over the bannister on the porch attached to his hotel room, eyes never leaving the ocean as it laps at sandy shores._

_Liam feels like he’s being choked to death._

_“You’re the first one I’m telling,” Zayn admits, still refusing to look up and meet Liam’s eyes, which are now most certainly swimming with tears of anger.  “I don’t…I can’t tell the other boys by myself, Liam.”_

_If Liam is being honest with himself, the news is not unexpected.  He’s watched Zayn come quietly undone for years now, becoming more and more reclusive as time went on.  Time that he once spent with Liam (and the other boys, for that matter) was either spent with Perrie or no one at all, and Liam was only just starting to get used to it._

_How is he supposed to get used to an entire **life** without Zayn in it, let alone a few nights?_

_“So that’s it, then?” Liam spits out.  “Your fiancée snaps her fingers and, just like that, you run to her side like a bloody **dog**?”_

_Zayn snorts and shakes his head.  “I fucking told you, Liam; it’s not just about keeping up appearances.  I can’t fucking **do** this anymore.  The cameras, the screaming…never getting a fucking minute just to sit down and **breathe**.  You’re lucky, you were made for this.  But I’m not.”  His voice gets quiet towards the end, dropping to nothing but a whisper when he says, “This is your life, Liam.  Not mine.”_

_Without even thinking about it, Liam moves so that he’s standing directly beside the other boy.  Perhaps a bit too roughly, he grabs Zayn’s chin and forces their eyes to meet.  Even as he cries his heart out.  Even as Zayn cries, too._

_They just watch each other for a bit, eyes searching faces for an explanation for something that doesn’t really have one.  Liam doesn’t drop his hand from Zayn’s face and Zayn doesn’t complain, and when Liam leans in to kiss him, Zayn just kisses back._

_It’s been a while since they’ve been together like this._

_Lately, their time together has been rushed and unemotional – each of them keeping up a front for the sake of engagements and girlfriends and nosy fans.  But now, with less time in the world than they’ve ever had before, or will ever have again, they kiss each other slowly and tangle their fingers together across wrinkled sheets.  Their tongues roll in time with their bodies and when Liam finishes, buried inside of Zayn with his forehead pressed to the tinier man’s shoulder, he almost says, “I love you.”_

_“ **I love you** ,” he would say.  “ **I love you and I don’t ever want to let you go.  Please don’t go**.”_

_He wants to say it more than anything.  He wants to tell Zayn all about the songs he’s written about him, about the ring he’s thought about buying at least thirty times just this past month alone._

_But he doesn’t._

_He lets Zayn fall asleep in his arms and when he wakes up alone, he texts Zayn to make sure he’s okay, but when they see each other in person later, he doesn’t say a single thing that he really wants to._

xxx

The accident that kills Zayn (Zain) Javadd Malik happens in the middle of summer, on a day that would otherwise hold no spectacular meaning.

Word travels fast.  “#RIPZayn” and “#WeWillAlwaysLoveYouZayn” trend in a matter of hours after the incident, and it’s through social media that those closest to him first hear the news.

Pictures of his current girlfriend crying in public are splattered across various news stations while writers scramble to get the name of the driver who swerved into Zayn’s car.  His family is assaulted by paparazzi, caught with their faces hidden by their hands and mascara stains streaming down their cheeks.

Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne (on a reunion tour) are all gathered together by their old management team, asked to sit down in the small lobby of their hotel and told to keep away from their phones.

The news is broken to them all at once.

There are shouts of disbelief.  Louis throws something.  Niall grabs his phone and scrolls through texts and notifications, desperate to find a lie buried somewhere amongst the truth.  Harry straight up leaves the room, followed by a nervous-looking bodyguard.

Liam sits, quiet and still, with his eyes, unmoving, locked onto the carpet.

xxx

_Like Harry, Zayn has a notebook that he keeps on him almost constantly, although he’s careful to keep it hidden from the cameras._

_Written inside are bits of songs and poems, along with nonsense scraps of thought that he later deems too unimportant to have written down, but that he keeps, anyway._

_It’s sitting in the passenger seat of his car when he shifts his gaze and notices, too late, the headlights coming straight towards him._

_His last thought, believe it or not, is of the first time he kissed Liam Payne, and how he hopes that his notebook ends up in the right hands._

xxx

Years later, when Liam has gray in his hair and even more in his beard, he’s standing over Zayn’s grave, staring down at the fresh flowers he placed against the stone just moments ago.  He reaches out to trace his fingers over the smooth, curved edge, rereading the same quote that he’s had memorized since the first time he read it.

“ _If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever_.”

It’s so cheesy and common that Zayn would have rolled his eyes at it, but the statement fits Zayn’s life so beautifully that Liam can’t even find it in him to smile at the thought of Zayn poking fun at him for finding elegance in something so morbidly well-known.

A few minutes later, right on time, Liam is joined by Zayn’s mother.  She’s brought over in a wheel-chair by one of Zayn’s sisters.

“Strange, isn’t it,” Zayn’s mother says.  With her daughter’s help, she shakily places a single flower beside Liam’s bouquet.  “How we use the term ‘anniversary’ for moments like marriage and death at the same time.”

Liam nods, now used to the odd, poetic things that the older woman uses to describe how’s she feeling or what she’s thinking.

She makes a noise in the back of her throat, almost like a hum, and asks her daughter to hand her the purse dangling from the handle of her chair.  “There’s something in here that I should have given you a long time ago, but I was selfish.  Didn’t want to let it go.”  She pulls a small, leather notebook out of the bag and smiles while tracing her fingers over the worn cover.  “This was Zayn’s,” is all she says as she passes it over to Liam, who takes it slowly from her wrinkled fingers.

“Last page.”

By her order, he skips through hundreds of pages covered in familiar script before landing on the final one.

Written in the very center of the page, a bit smudged by time and maybe, perhaps, fingerprints, are the following words:

_I love you, Liam._


End file.
